GMM’s home shopping JV eyes ways to ramp up sales

Corporate March 21, 2017 01:00

By KWANCHAI RUNGFAPAISARN
THE NATION

GMM CJ O Shopping, a joint venture set up by GMM Grammy and South Korea-based CJ O Shopping to operate a home-shopping business in Thailand, targets ramping up sales from online channels to 30 per cent of revenue in three years from 10 per cent currently.

The company plans to explore outside Thailand after achieving Bt3 billion in annual sales targeted in three years, with Myanmar showing the most interesting possibilities.

GMM CJ O Shopping posted Bt1.7 billion in sales last year.

Chief executive officer Suwat Damrongchaitham said that currently, 90 per cent of the company’s sales came from television shopping. The company just launched online shopping at the beginning of last year.

There are four major types of screens for the display of media content – TV sets, personal computers, tablets, and smartphones.

“Consumers aged 60 and up are still familiar with conventional television sets, which have provided them the easiest way to consume content. They don’t need to know or doing anything but just use the remote control,” said Suwat, who has been the CEO at GMM CJ O Shopping since January.

“I personally believe that televisions will be around for at least 10 years,” he said.

Consumers under 60 tend to use the other media screens. Those digital screens require a higher level of knowledge in order to enjoy all their features.

The “Masked Singer” programme, for instance, relied on TV as its first media window, then spread via other platforms, including YouTube and social networks.

“TV has been losing its charm. Today, people can watch media content wherever they are, even in a car. They can repeat their viewing any time they want,” he said.

In mature markets such as South Korea, TV still contributes about half of home-shopping sales, he said.

GMM CJ O Shopping has been in the home-shopping business for about five years, entering the market after TV Direct and True Select. The value of the home-shopping market is expected reach about Bt10 billion this|year.

He said there were many problems obstructing the growth of online shopping, including the lack of appropriate payment systems.

The government has not yet provided any effective measure to regulate the enhancement of home shopping, especially against fraud, he said.

The company plans to launch a new effective home-shopping model relying on the 80/20 rule – about 80 per cent of products generate only 20 per cent of sales.

“What we will do under the new business model is reduce the cost of those 80 per cent of underperforming products and facilitate the growth of the 20 per cent of the best-selling items,” he said.

“We will also focus on the evaluation of consumers’ shopping behaviour based on information gained from our computerised back-office system. We then will be able to make a good match between our products and the requirements of individual shoppers.”